#but again it just feels like the xmen office are just incapable of understanding them

[brw]

I saw your post about Charles Xavier, and I loved it. I hate when Charles is written by as villainous or seen that way by fans; because of his visible disability and one the fact that he's one of the most prominent disabled characters in comics that is being portrayed/seen as evil.

Also, could you tell me about your thoughts on Charles please.

ooooo yeah i do think writers have given charles a VERY short end of the stick... which is weird because a lot of writers after will continue to write him as a kindly old man figure despite the moral transgressions which i think is where most people's frustration comes from. but i do think he's held to a higher standard? like i keep saying it but emma's name is literally white queen + she once stole & used ororo's body against her will + hellfire trading company is very clearly inspired by the east india trading company, but she's a fan favourite. this isn't to say he isn't an awful person at times but for xmen that means kind of nothing to me. anyway, for me personally i just get frustrated because i think there is a good potential narrative here but because writers aren't disabled & don't understand our experiences this context is always missing.

"charles is a spineless liberal" is funny to say but it makes more sense once you think about him as a disabled man who for most of his life was not disabled. disabled people HAVE to make themselves digestible & acceptable for neurotypical society, so we can get the accessibility & accomodations we desperately need. it makes SENSE from that perspective charles would be more about acceptance & assimilation, because from his experience as a disabled man that's what he needs. it makes sense that erik, as a jewish survivor, knows that you can't make peace with some people & it is much better to be independent, to have the ability to defend yourself & to take out the people who literally want you dead, but those aren't necessarily the same goals as the disabled community, at least not for Charles. Him & Erik are a very interesting potential narrative about how different communities have different goals and different needs, but because few writers who touch Charles have disabilities that nuance is often lost & he becomes the spineless liberal we joke about.

Charles also works as a very good discussion on internalised ableism, were people to take him in that direction. Like I said, Charles wasn't always disabled & for much of his early adult life he was able bodied, & he grew up in an ableist society. It makes sense he would then internalise that & project that onto his own students & the way he approaches mutants. because he's so uncomfortable with himself & the way he looks, he's become uncomfortable with the way visible mutants look too because he struggles to separate the two. that would explain in part why all the mutants he chooses to represent the xmen or to go out for press conferences or whatever are all human passing, because of his internal sense of shame that he's projected onto children who don't deserve that.

& that's one of the biggest let downs of the modern era is that Charles automatically chooses to be walking.Yes, for some people that's empowering, but Charles will always be the first name people think of when they think of wheelchair users in comics, aside from Barbara. That recognisability in my opinion is more important, & I just can't help but feel like it would be important to have Charles be with Karma in a character that has accepted their disability & is not interested in changing themselves. Yes, that isn't everyone's experience & I do think it's important for some people who want those stories to have a voice, but Charles has a pop culture iconography that in my opinion is more important than a justification to erase his disability.

Charles is a very flawed person, & I think he should stay being flawed & imperfect & often ignoring other people's needs & opinions that are based around their experiences that he doesn't share, but I think he also does have a lot of potential as a disabled character & I'm very frustrated at the x-office opting to just erase that aspect rather than try and include those narratives. Like Krakoa still doesn't look wheelchair accessible. We could have an interesting discussion about how even in leftist utopias disabled people are still often forgotten about or ignored & erased out of the discussion, but because nobody sees the inaccessibility that discussion just isn't there. It's disappointing & just another item in the long list of how the X-Men team fail to tackle minority politics accurately or at all.